Saturday, April 26, 2008

Game #2-1: (Belated) Flyers Dome

Another busy day, another delay in Opponents Dome. But watching the opposition is half the fun, so keep an eye on these six to see if they can solidify their claim to dome positions tonight...

Dome hockey teamThey're going into the last minute with these 6 against the Montreal Canadiens (and they're attached to the ice, so they're not coming off)...Forwards

Scottie Upshall– can I please just call you Scott? you are not 5, though you are on the right team if 5-year old histrionics is what you are best at. Scott played a good game in that he did what he does best. He won a lot of pucks and won a critical penalty from Mike Komisarek. In fact, I think he was the man responsible for taking Komi's head right out of the game. We need Lapierre to be more like this pest.

Jim Dowd– probably just the Habs connection, but I really noticed him in Game 1. In terms of stats, he was the best Flyer forward by a long shot (no pun intended). In addition, he scored the only legitimate goal for the men in orange and black - a nice one at that.

Patrick Thoresen– he made the nicest offensive play of the night for the Flyers with that pass to Jim Dowd. Other than that, he was on the best Flyers line and isn't named Downie (who I have given a lifetime suspension from all dome appearances, as should the NHL, for that hit on Bergeron).

Putting Thoresen in is also a reflection on how bad the Flyers true stars - Briere and Prospal - were on the whole, while trying to shake coverage. Stats maven Jeff at Sisu hockey shows that: "The Briere line was utterly destroyed, but through dumb luck managed to keep opponents off the scoreboard." with some crazy stats I find hard to decipher, but great to look at.

Defencemen

Kimmo Timonen- If someone as in-tune as Jeff at Sisu hockey says so, I listen: "Timonen was dominant but through some bad luck wound up -2." Mike Boone may be ignorant about Timonen (in the puckcast he claims not to be able to tell Finnish players apart), but Timonen was the Flyers best defenceman as expected. I thought that Koivu in particular was well contained, and even Kovalev for the majority of the game barring SH breaks, PP and late faceoffs. Timonen was responsible in large part for this

Derian Hatcher- played a solid game, that was enhanced by the fact he was allowed to get away with an awful lot. He may be slow, but on a couple of occasions he demonstrated why he is still in the league - his strength. He's also in here due to the fact that none of his compatriots did anything too exceptional over the night, he also played the most even strength minutes of any Flyer after Coburn. The best play he made was holding the puck along the boards for about 15 seconds, thereby running down the clock at the end of the period

Goaltender

Antero Nittymaki- you can't make the dome if you play like Biron did. It's nothing personal, and it's happened to Price many times, as well. 2 posts, that Kostitsyn goal, and the tying and the winning goals could all have been saves on a better night. Stevens thought Biron was good, so we'll likely see him again. Nittymaki would start for me in a dome hockey game